The present trade in opium is something enormous, especially in India, China, and Asia Minor. To the credit of the Chinese and the discredit of the English it must be said that in 1793 the former strenuously objected to the introduction of opium traffic by the latter. This opposition by the Chinese government culminated in the "Opium War," which led to the treaty of Nanking in 1842, giving the English the authority to introduce opium into China as a staple article of commerce. The reason that Chinese officials objected to the introduction of opium was because they recognized the fact that the inhabitants very readily acquired the habit of smoking opium. In spite of the most severe government edicts the habit spread very rapidly after the treaty referred to. Gum opium contains active principles (alkaloids), to which it owes its peculiar stimulating, soporific, and pain-relieving powers. Of these alkaloids, of which there are about nineteen, morphine and codeine are undoubtedly the most important. The properties of gum opium represent therefore the collective properties of all of the alkaloids and are similar to the properties of the predominating alkaloids just mentioned. Physicians generally agree that opium is the most important of medicines. Properly used it is certainly a great boon to mankind, for which there is no substitute, but, like all great blessings, it has its abuses. It is the most effective remedy for the relief of pains and spasms of all kinds. It will produce calm and sleep where everything else has failed. It finds a use in all diseases and ailments accompanied by severe pain, in delirium, rheumatic and neuralgic troubles, in dysentery, etc. It may be applied externally to abraded surfaces, to ulcers and inflamed tissues for the relief of pain. The value of opium does not lie so much in its direct curative powers as in its sedative and quieting effects upon diseased organs, which tends to hasten or bring about the healing or recuperating process. In some diseases the physician refrains from giving opium, as in fully developed pneumonia, since the quieting effect would diminish the efforts on the part of the patient to get rid of the inflammatory products accumulating in the air vesicles and finer bronchial tubes. In fact, the soothing effect is too often mistaken for a curative effect and the patient is neglected. The Roman habit of feeding children pap mixed with poppy juice was a pernicious one. Many modern mothers give their sick and crying infants "soothing syrups," most, if not all, of which contain opium in some form, as tincture of opium and paregoric. Too often the poor, overworked mother, who cannot afford to consult a physician, will purchase a bottle of "soothing syrup" or "cough remedy" for her child because she knows it produces a quieting effect, which is mistaken for a cure, when in reality the incipient symptoms are only masked. Only a reliable physician should be permitted to prescribe opium in any form.